Scientists think that the asteroid that hit Earth may have been even bigger than previously thought. According to the size of the Vredefort crater, the impact scar could have been twice as wide as the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs.
The biggest visible crater on Earth is the Vredefort crater, which measures about 99 miles in diameter. It is smaller than the Chicxulub crater, which was left by an asteroid that hit Earth at the end of the Cretaceous period, and is located under the Yucatn Peninsula.
Impact craters shrink over time due to erosion. The Vredefort crater is thought to have been formed two billion years ago. The Vredefort crater is considered to be the largest impact crater on Earth even though it is small.
Scientists thought the Vredefort crater was much larger than it actually is. Researchers estimated that the asteroid would have measured around 15 km across and hit at a speed of around 33,500 mph. Scientists have gained new insight into the crater's size in a new study.
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The size of the Vredefort asteroid was found to be between 20 and 25 miles.
"Understanding the largest impact structure that we have on Earth is critical because it allows researchers to build more accurate geological models," said Natalie Allen, the study's lead author. She said that more accurate predictions of impactor sizes could shed light on other craters.
Scientists have been unable to pin down the original size of the Vredefort crater due to its erosion over the past 2 billion years.
Roger Gibson, a structural geologist at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa who was not involved in the study, told NASA's Earth Observatory that erosion can affect ancient impact craters such as Vredefort. The bowl's diameter will decrease if you slice horizontally through it.
There are newer rock formations atop parts of the Vredefort impact structure. Most of the crater's original structure has been covered by younger rocks and only a small portion of the crater's elevated rim can be seen.
The Vredefort crater's size has been estimated by focusing on minerals around the crater. The study authors wrote that by doing this, scientists were able to see the effects of the ancient impact on the material.
The new estimate for the size of the Vredefort asteroid is more accurate than the previous ones.
The destruction caused by the impact of the asteroid was immense. The event caused widespread forest fires and acid rain, generated mile-high waves in a tsunami that reached halfway across the planet, and sent huge amounts of ash and dust into the air. A study published in the journal Scientific Reports states that 75% of life on Earth was wiped out by the event.
The world's oldest meteorite crater is not what it appears.
The new study suggests that the Vredefort asteroid was larger than the dinosaur-killer. The impact would have been more severe if it had been traveling faster. There isn't much evidence of the blast's effects on the planet because it happened so long ago.
The Vredefort impact did not leave a record of mass extinction or forest fires since there were only single-cell life forms and no trees two billion years ago. The impact would have had a bigger impact on the global climate.
The only way to learn more about the impact is to continue to study it.
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